About this guide
Waterfalls of Japan is an English guide to the 100 Selected Waterfalls of Japan — the Nihon no Taki Hyakusen chosen in 1990. For every fall we publish its drop, location and coordinates, a photograph, and the full text of its encyclopedia article, so that everything you need to know about the waterfall is in one place.
How the guide is built
Each waterfall page brings together three openly licensed sources:
- Article text — adapted in full from the fall's Wikipedia article (English where it exists, otherwise the Japanese article, translated into English for this guide and credited as such), under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Reference lists and external-link collections are omitted; the source of every page is credited at its foot.
- Facts — drops, widths and coordinates cross-checked against Wikidata (CC0), with the list order, Japanese names and locations of the original 100 Selected Waterfalls table (Japanese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Photographs — from Wikimedia Commons, each credited with its author and licence beneath the picture. Only freely licensed photographs are used.
We never invent facts. Where a source gives no value — some falls have no reliably published drop — the field is left out rather than filled with a guess. Published drop figures can differ between sources, because falls are measured from different points and change as rivers shift their courses.
Safety
This guide is for reading and planning. Paths beside waterfalls are slippery, spray keeps rock wet in every season, and trails can close without warning after heavy rain, snow or earthquakes. Keep to marked paths, respect closures and barriers, and confirm current access with official local sources before visiting.